Law firm hires machine to do its due diligence

Law firm Maddocks will start using artificial intelligence to streamline its due diligence process thanks to a new deal with Luminance AI.

Maddocks partner Ron Smooker said on Thursday that following a detailed trial, the platform – developed in the UK – provided significant improvement in the speed and accuracy of the due diligence process.

“The platform provides our lawyers with an instant insight into the data room, allowing us to structure our review and deliver considerable time savings and efficiency gains compared to a manual review alone. We are confident that the Luminance platform, together with Maddocks’ transactional expertise, will provide tangible benefits to our clients,” Smooker said.

The AI tool reads and understands legal documents in a similar way to humans but at a greater speed, Luminance claims. It sorts and classifies documents while highlighting possible anomalies for review by a lawyer.

Maddocks said it has long championed technology solutions for its clients having created its own products such as ePortfolio and eContracts.

“It’s important however that we also keep an eye on emerging software and technology,” said the law firm’s innovation partner Shaun Temby.

“Our adoption of the Luminance AI platform is just another example of how we are delivering on our goal to embed a culture of innovation across the entire firm. We are highly focused on supporting ideas from all parts of the firm that have the potential to add value to what we do for our clients,” Temby said.

Gilbert + Tobin is also using Luminance for another tool called Kira for its due diligence. Kira was developed in the United States.